At the end of November 2022, the British magazine "The Economist" issued an analytical article with a direct title saying: "Why will the year 2023 witness an inevitable global economic recession?" In which the editorial team of the magazine specialized in global economic affairs explains the reasons why The year 2023 is a difficult year for the global economy, whether at the level of countries or companies, regardless of their size, and thus affecting the lives of everyone around the world with varying severity.

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Certainly, entrepreneurs, project owners, and managers come at the head of the people who will face the global recession face to face, with the decline in sales and the escalation of financing, growth and employment problems, and what this means in terms of business stability in the short and long term, which requires - of necessity - a pause from entrepreneurs to face a year that will not Be easy, and review many things of life first before action.

In this report, we propose a group of important self-development books that help you in facing exceptional circumstances.

Status-seeking anxiety

The book "Anxiety seeking status" (networking sites)

The dominant motive behind our desire to move up the social ladder may not be related to the material goods we accumulate or the power we acquire, but to the amount of love we aspire to receive as a result of high status, money, fame and influence can be valued as badges symbolism of love and means of obtaining it, not as ends in themselves.

(Alain de Botton, Status Quest Anxiety)

No one can deny that every entrepreneur, regardless of his field and level, may seem outwardly seeking to achieve success for himself, his company, and his team - and this is self-evident -, but in reality he seeks to achieve what is most important: prestige.

That magic word that refers to a person's value in the eyes of people, which in turn is reflected in a person's attitude towards himself, either a sense of contentment and self-fulfillment, or a sense of humiliation and inferiority compared to others.

It is very important to read this book in a year of global recession.

The book "Status Anxiety" by the British-Swiss writer "Alain de Botton" was published for the first time in 2004, and it is considered one of the most important books that strike deeply in an attempt to analyze the motives of man in general, and modern man in particular, to move in any direction, whether To reap wealth or to reap the right emotional relationships.

The book is one of the most famous books that reset the "compass" so to speak, and it carries deep meanings that help the reader stop for a while to know what he is doing and why he is doing what he is doing.

The author divided his book into 10 chapters divided into two large parts. In the first part, he discusses the reasons for striving for status with all the hardship and psychological and physical burdens that it bears on every person that directly affect the details of his life and the level of his happiness and misery, while in the second part he sheds light on solutions that help to Dissipating these burdens and adjusting them in their correct framework, which ensures that each person achieves what he truly aspires to without burning his whole life, only to discover that he was in fact chasing a mirage that only exists in his mind.

The book bears clear philosophical dimensions, but Bouton used abundant language in it that can be easily understood by the reader who is not in-depth in philosophy or deep intellectual and mental concepts, which made it one of the best foundational books that reset the entrepreneur’s concepts and expectations in life, and finds a permanent place in the lists of book nominations which it is recommended to read in order to rebuild a new outlook on life and deal with it.

The Distinguished

The Distinguished Book (Communication Sites)

Malcolm Gladwell is a well-known journalist who has worked for a number of major American newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, and has gained great fame in the past two decades.

It is enough that he has written 6 books so far, all of which have topped the New York Times bestseller list at different times, starting with the famous first book published in 2000, "The Turning Point", and ending with his latest book, published in 2019, entitled "Talking to Strangers."

Among his six books, we choose one of the most important and enjoyable books, entitled "Outliers", which was published in 2008, and was considered one of the most popular books at the time.

In this book, Gladwell sheds light on one of the most important questions most people ask regarding assessing their abilities and comparing them to the capabilities of others: Do the distinguished really have to be geniuses?

Are they different from us, have different capabilities, better conditions, or is the matter always subject to our judgments and good choices?

In nine chapters, Gladwell delves into an attempt to explore the depths of the privileged and analyze the reasons and circumstances that led them to this position, and it seems clear in his book that it is not only about perseverance, perseverance, and invested learning as is rumored in self-development books, and that there are always direct reasons as well as indirect reasons.

Gladwell hit an excellent introduction at the beginning of his book, talking about the people of an Italian town whose residents do not suffer from any health crises. The outside world and its troubles.

In the same vein, Gladwell follows in his book, trying to find the hidden reasons for the distinction of geniuses, the rich, and the holders of prestigious positions, which move away from the clichés of work, luck, personal development, or genetic genius.

Among the chapters of the book, his theorizing came about the "10,000 hours" rule to learn anything, a rule that many books and studies dealt with later in an attempt to prove or refute it.

It is a "distinguished" book about the distinguished, which combines scientific studies and statistics on the one hand, and the high literary style on the other hand, as well as stories related to business and excellence in it on the third side, which makes it one of the most rich books that present aspects of knowledge in many fields, useful Very saturated at the beginning of a new year.

Deep work

Deep work book (networking sites)

It can be said without exaggeration that failure to get things done and to perform tasks effectively is the biggest nightmare for anyone who aspires to achieve their professional development.

And certainly on top of the reasons that lead to these failures is the huge amount of distractions that surround us every moment, at the time of the leading “trends” every day, and everyone’s struggle to appear on social media, communicate through applications, and other distractions that affect On one's focus on completing his work deeply, which necessarily negatively affects his professional level as a whole.

Calvin Newport, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science and works as a lecturer at Georgetown University, has published a valuable book that has been translated into most languages ​​of the world, including Arabic, entitled "Deep Work", in which he reviews focused solutions to this particular crisis: How can you master Your work - whatever your field - is at a high level at all times, regardless of the level of distractions that surround you.

In his book, Newport deals with the concept of deep work, focusing on methods of achieving it in realistic ways far from theorizing, after dividing work - whatever its type - into two types: superficial work and deep work.

The first does not require much mental effort and can be accomplished with good performance amid distractions, while the second needs to create favorable conditions to accomplish it in the best possible way in a specific time, which is what the bulk of his book is dedicated to.

The book "Deep Work" has received positive critical reviews, and is considered one of the top modern books that focus in practical ways on ways to build conditions conducive to the completion of deep work in circumstances some of which are almost impossible, citing dozens of true stories, including the story of the author himself.

The book is undoubtedly one of the most useful books to read while making plans for the new year, because it discusses the most important element of any plan: execution.

The power of habits

The book "The Power of Habits" (Communication Sites)

One of the most famous self-motivation books over the past years, written by Charles Doig, a graduate of the prestigious Harvard Business School, who decided to combine his specialization in the world of management and business on the one hand, and the skills of building effective positive habits on the other hand, and presented all these ideas in his book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Our Personal and Work Lives.

The book contains everything that concerns the reader in the aspect of building positive habits in the interest of improving personal life, especially the scope of money and business.

Therefore, the author divided the book into 3 sections, one section dealing with the habits of individuals and how to build them, another section dealing with the habits of teams and institutions, and the third section focusing on the habits of societies, meaning that the book begins with the individual first, then expands to the team, family, or small group, and then ends by highlighting On building habits for communities.

The author flooded his book with examples in almost all areas of business, as he detailed ways of building a group of celebrities for their positive habits that led them to the position they reached. The book also mentions stations in the journey of building giant companies such as "Starbucks" and "Target" and others. Global companies, and deals with both the individual and the group in terms of analyzing their successes and even their failures based on the habits of their leaders, employees and work teams.

The main advantage of the book "The Power of Habits" remains that although it targets the methodology of "building a positive habit" in general, it always adapts it in the world of money, earning, and job performance, which makes it an excellent book for the reader who cares about both sides: habits and professional success, which are the two elements that the writer considered a cause and effect. They appear directly in the life of those who can apply the steps correctly.

Daily laws

The book "Daily Laws" (communication sites)

What if I collected the most important summaries of the books of the famous American author "Robert Green" in one book consisting of 366 chapters, each chapter is only one page that contains a focused idea from his most important books that were published during the past years?

The book "The Daily Laws" was published in 2021, and it received a great global response, including the Arabic version, which was presented in libraries during the year 2022.

Robert Green is the author of a group of the most important global life and self-development books that occupies a permanent position in the archive of books most recommended for reading, starting with his most famous book "48 Rules for Power", passing through his equally famous book "33 Strategies of War", and not ending with books " The Art of Seduction" and "Mastery" and the book "Human Laws".

His latest book brings together all the ideas from his previous books, in the form of abbreviated capsules for each day of the year.

The book mainly aims at self-development of its reader in terms of correcting his professional decisions, adapting to life, seizing opportunities and making more use of them, and even facing failures, mistakes and conflicts.

Without a doubt, this book is an excellent opportunity for readers who do not have much time to read Green's work - always huge pages -, and at the same time seek to know the abstracts of his ideas that he produced over 25 years of extensive research in the topics of strategy, mastery, power and human nature.

Finally, the year 2023 may be in the eyes of experts and bankers a difficult year in general, but history proves that general difficulties are always an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs with creative mindsets to generate opportunities and achieve gains that they would not have achieved under normal circumstances, or - at least - persistence in the face of The storm which is a victory in itself!

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Sources:

1 - Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023

** The books mentioned in the list are within the author's personal list, and all the information contained in the article is derived from the books themselves, or from the translations of their authors.